


La Cohiba Habanera

by AlmesivaMoonshadow



Category: Far Cry, Far Cry 3
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Bipolar Disorder, Circumstancial Relating, Crimes & Criminals, Depression, Double Life, Double Loyalties, Existential Crisis, Gambling, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Indentity Crisis, Narcotics, Other, Poker Nights, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Questioning Things, References to Depression, References to Drugs, Slave Trafficking, Spies & Secret Agents, Stockholm Syndrome, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 16:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15755097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmesivaMoonshadow/pseuds/AlmesivaMoonshadow
Summary: Sam Becker's last conversation with Hoyt Volker was more then just his last conversation. It was an epiphany of sorts.





	La Cohiba Habanera

_-"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards._  
_I got a full house and four people died."-_

_―Steven Wright_

 

* * *

 

 

 

First lesson for any man in his profession - don't become emotionally compromised.

 

 

And sure, Sam Becker tried, time and again, separating himself from the awful, downright grizzly reality around him through all the various personas he's made up for himself throughout the years to cope with the unimaginable, borderline maddening stress of the undercover mission that engulfed a big portion of his life by now, like a spreading tumor that became impossible to cut away at the roots - the all-American, blue eyed middle class son of a navy seal - the typical jock type - the shady foreigner blending in like a chameleon, changing colors and changing faces to suit his current agenda - a fake accent - a fake nationality - a fake resume - the larger-then-life, tattooed, bald German commando who would frighten even the most seasoned of killers gathered from all around the globe on this godforsaken island like a pack of money-straved, bloodthirsty rats spreading their disease in this cesspool of degradation and all with one solitary purpose - to serve him. Hoyt Volker liked his thugs and hired goons as varied, diverse and as colorful as the sunlit, searing archipelago he presided over like any self-proclaimed, shut-in, guarded mythical king of the underworld would. Like the many-rainbow feathers of a rare and prized paradise bird flying overhead - as morbid, cheesy and unfitting that metaphor sounded like that very first time he's made it to himself, privately, as a tasteless joke of sorts. He didn't laugh, though. Not even a distant chuckle. He wasn't like Agent H and he never could be no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't just handle all of this abject horror with a passive-aggressive sort of relaxed cynicism towards everything and everybody around him without cracking at least a little on the inside. Willis was Willis no matter what assignment he was on and no matter where in the world. Proud, cocky and American to the teeth - Sam had to seep his sorrows into his artificial otherness, be it German, faux-European, American or Martian for all someone cared. He just had to distance himself somehow, through something.

 

 

Becker was, well, trained and encouraged even, to save face and just be whoever he had to be in the moment.  
Whoever he had to transform himself into in order to successfully infiltrate and gather intel from inside the snake's den.  
Under Huntley's instructions - he's turned into a bodyguard, a torturer, a slave-peddler and a mercenary as well.  
And even though all contact was broken for what seemed like years, a sleeper agent never really sleeps.  
Huntley's lessons remained - an operative is like a viper - he sheds skin - changes patterns.  
Is like the water - slips into every hole, every crack, every flaw, every dent of the system.  
The task that certainly daunted him the most, is becoming a confidante - a confidante to a man like this.  
He's made friends with rapists, murderers, drug-addicts and arsonists during his stay on Rook - the worst of the worst.  
But never exactly with the infamous rotten cherry on top of this moldy, infected shit-pie himself, as Huntley would poetically put it.

 

 

He's seen the man's FBI wanted poster - his long list of crimes - it left a bad aftertaste in his mouth even now.

 

 

Getting acquainted with Hoyt Volker was one thing.  
Infiltrating his ranks and impressing him was also one thing.  
Becoming his second-in-command over time, quite similarly so.  
But, getting him to trust you, well, that was an entirely different affair.

 

 

 

Hoyt didn't trust a damn soul, Becker learned overtime and surely, it wasn't surprising - and sometimes, that knowing, wicked gleam in the Afrikaner's beaded, pale, sickly green eyes veiled in a curtain of white smoke burning white on the tip of his cigar made him believe that he didn't entirely trust him either, despite of all his pleasantries and tense politeness falling from his tongue like venom - Volker chose him, outside of his obvious skill-set, precisely because of his Germanic predispositions, stereotypical as it was - something about the Apartheid and his own father favoring German man-at-arms and German doctrine back in the 70's and 80's - just a very roundabout way of saying the diamond miner patriarch his boss always looked up and fondly mentioned during orientation speeches to his men might've been a downright fascist - so, Sam played into it, knowing it would appeal to his superior and his superior's very unfortunate background - has, for a couple of years now - was it two or three or five or ten, Becker couldn't recall - viewing the Foster-alias of Jason Brody as a sort of salvation - a salvation from pretending he liked beating up hostages, tormenting slaves, being an over-glorified jailer and having his hands so deep in blood that he doubted Uncle's Sam's paid leave after all of his was finally over, if that day ever comes will never, would ever wash away the stains. Sam just didn't feel like much of an admirable person anymore. At first, signing up for this felt like a noble task. An idealistic task - a task worthy of a hero - but, the more he spent time here, with these people, slavers and sadists and criminals and monstrosities of the kind of Buck Hughes, as rarely as anyone ever seen him leave his humble lodge, the more he like he was becoming one of them and he was adopting their behavior, their manners, they speech patterns, their habits and their many, many flaws whether he wanted to or not - part of the job, Huntley would say - but, was part of the job loosing who one was as well?

 

 

 

Who was Sam Becker, outside of all of his aliases?  
He certainly didn't remember anymore.  
He felt he played the part of the villain for so long.  
The muscle, the soldier, the brainless giant, the expendable, the spy.  
That everything he ever was prior blended into his persona and blurred reality from make-belief.  
But, Willis would've said it's merely the side effect of PTSD and some bipolar disorder or other - only natural.  
That he would be given treatment back in the States with some time off, somewhere nice, in the countryside - Nebraska, or something.

 

 

 

Yet, Sam doubted that commonplace stress would've led him to forget his real accent, real personality and real character.He never admitted it to anyone, but hope was slipping away, ever so slowly, like the languid, far away smoke stretching from Vaas' island across the bay - Hoyt's mad dog was murdered by the very American tourist, escaped hostage, Foster, Jason Brody he was making his alliances with right now - the jungle was merciless - and ever since that incident reached their ears in the compound, Sam was filled with both hidden desperation and hidden euphoria - if Hoyt died or ended up paying his dues, just as they orchestrated his fall ages ago, who would he become? What would remain once he relinquished this role? Sam shuddered to think about it.

 

 

_-"You know - "-_

 

 

So, that last evening, before that eventful poker night that Foster and him were meant to make all of this right and have all of this pay off once and for all, Volker spoke to him, quizzical and ominous as ever after the beatdown the kid in holding cells got from Brody on camera - the dusk was red, peeking through the shutters of the office like a wall of dying fire, the palm trees swaying on a humid breeze before sundown - they spoke like this often - in spite of his reputation and money and business deals, Hoyt seemed like a lonely man - chattering with armed escorts, guards and privateers - but, never quite as unexpectedly as this. Almost took Becker off balance, always reminding himself to play stupider then he really was. Clueless.Ignorant. Dumb. Part of him wondering if he ever was anything different in the first place.

 

 

_-"I don't think Foster's, how would you say, proficient enough with his deck for this, but, we'll see. I don't trust a poker player who doesn't appreciate a fine whiff."-_

 

 

Hoyt added with an amused chuckle.  
Confident, cynical and cocksure as ever before.  
Seemingly genuinely enthusiastic about tonight's round with his new golden pupil.  
Like a giddy child, flipping his lucky pile of cards - quite oblivious and pleased with himself.  
Not that reading his boss' true moods was ever and smooth task to master fully to sheer perfection.  
Was easy to forget that Volker too, was painfully human and watching him lull in his leather chair almost pained Sam.  
He spent years with this man - learning how he liked his liquor, his bedfellows, his cigars and his music.  
What methods he used for corporal punishment, intimidating, lying, business, charm and humor.  
what his favorite hunting technique was, how he fired his rounds and how he cursed.  
Tonight, Foster and him would do Volker in, and it felt almost like -  
Well, almost like killing off a piece of his own identity.  
One that he cultivated for such a long time now.  
Watered daily with lies and pretense.

 

 

Sam Becker - the German lieutenant with the knife strapped to his chest.

 

 

_-"Ja. Maybe so."-_

 

 

Was all he could muster in response - taking a long drag of his own cigarette - trying for natural, casual and everything but disheartened.

 

 

_-"Ja! The poker face, though! Word has it, as long as you have a good pair of those, your game can be as good as won against all odds. Key is, never letting your opponent know what you're working with. Good cards or bad cards. Takes practice. Takes expertise. Some people never fully get a grip of it - but once you do. Oh, once you do. It's a sort of art form. Life imitates art, eh? It's a sort of sport, if you will. Without it, you're as good as gambling with your very life."-_

 

 

Hoyt was eagerly holding yet another one of his long-winded lectures on cards.  
Would've been tacky and unnecessary if he wasn't one of the best of the best Sam ever encountered.  
With the odd penchant of collecting fingers and whatever else deemed his fancy if his opponent lost.  
Seemingly, he knew exactly what he was talking about, even now, with that cold, sharp, reptilian smile.  
The type which never really sincerely reached his eyes, like he was saying something other then what he was meaning.  
And Sam learned to develop his own poker face - not unmoving and emotionless, but rather dull and borderline silly.  
He was known as the tough, strong, not-so-developed in the smarts department around these parts.  
Just smart enough to be intimidating, but hardly smart enough to be a treat to anyone.  
To be a betrayer, a schemer or a conspiratorial type - just a bulky set of arms.  
They thought he was dumb and he didn't try to disprove them at all.  
Even now, merely nodding at Hoyt's monologue like an idiot.  
An empty, semi-amuse smile - hollow and distant.  
That's how he played the game.  
By acting the fool.

 

 

Maybe Hoyt would finally fall for the bait - Sam had to believe he would.  
For Uncle Sam, Willis, Foster, the people trapped here, himself.  
He had to get out of this purgatorial state he was in.  
Even though, he was very much afraid to.  
The world outside of Volker's gestapo seemed so alien.

 

 

So strange an unfamiliar - he wasn't sure if he could adapt and fit in at this point, regardless of what Huntley claimed.

 

 

 

_-"Not sure about that Foster kid, but you, you - you've got a good one. A good poker face. Very - understated. What's that word - ah yes - unassuming!"-_

 

 

 

Hoyt quipped cheerfully, wagging his index finger at him from the other side of the wooden table.  
His accent coming through his attempts to dig out the right terms to describe what he meant.  
Sam could only shrug his shoulders apologetically, humbly, almost meekly.  
Uncertain where his boss was exactly going with all of this by now.  
Assuming he was expected to give at least some matter of joking retort back.  
He was this man's right hand butcher for ages now - some manner of intimacy was warranted.  
Becker was out to murder him tonight, might as well offer a passing sense of familiarity to ease Hoyt into the trap.  
Taking a long drag of his _Cohiba Habanera_ , as his boss taken a fancy to affectionately referring to his import Cuban cigars and blurting the first thing that crossed his mind.  
Hating all this waiting - calm before the storm - wishing Jason could just show up at the gates already so they could skip the awkward in-between conversations already and get down to business.

 

 

 

_-I have a good poker face because I'm half dead inside, as they say, ja? Wunderbar!"-_

 

 

Sam spoke with earnest humor - much darker and self-deprecating then he would've anticipated or liked in the moment - without a filter - containing too much self-awareness - only too late realizing what he said and being unable to take it back, leading both Hoyt and himself to fall into a sudden fit of roaring, mutual laughter that echoed the compound now half-empty and eerily silent from inside out, uncertain if either actually found that comment that remarkably funny or not or if they were both laughing for their individually private reasons and instead of musing there like a deer caught in the headlights and deciphering the potential meanings behind Volker's cryptic, Mona Lisa-like smile, Sam Becker took another drag of his tobacco, closing his mind off on the spot, dissociating as he always did - and instead of being the vary, careful, uncertain double-agent pushed to the edge of his limits for the sake of Uncle Sam, Willis Huntley, freedom, justice, the homeland he nearly forgot, karma and long-overdue payback, coming far too close to danger and practically sensing it tingling beneath the line of spine - he became what he always preferred when faced with the uncomfortable, the impossible, the queasy and the haunting - Sam Becker - the tall, blue eyed, inked German commando driving fear into the hearts of all those who behold him, knowing somewhere deep, deep down below the core that no matter who wins their poker match tonight, this will be the last Cohiba Habanera he and Hoyt Volker will ever share together, sitting opposite of each other almost like friends do in the eyes of an unbiased observer, in this place suddenly so quiet, melancholy and lonesome - and by the first break of dawn, Sam Becker will either adopt a new identity, be reassigned, given official leave, evacuated out of here, be sent who knows where, with objective and with what intel in mind or he'll leave his bones here, swallowed by the soil that devoured so many lives under his watch - and he would never see his home again.

 

 

 

And if he ever does, he'll be changed beyond recognition - and the look Hoyt gave him in that moment felt almost like he knew as well - that this island changes you forever.


End file.
